Tu (clothing)

Last updated
Tu
Industry Fashion
Founded2004
Number of locations
400+
Owner Sainsbury's
Website tuclothing.sainsburys.co.uk

Tu is a British own-brand fashion label from the supermarket Sainsbury's. It is the United Kingdom's third largest online clothing retailer and the United Kingdom's sixth largest clothing retailer by volume. [1] [2]

Contents

Product range

Tu sells a wide range of clothing for men, women and children, with 3,000 lines sold through 400 Sainsbury's supermarkets. [3]

History

The Tu brand was founded in 2004 by Sainsbury's as a replacement for the Jeff & Co range designed by Jeff Banks. The new brand included a line of childrenswear created by Adams. It was initially launched in 160 stores. [4] The original range included both clothing under the "TU" brand and homewares under the brand "TU Home".[ citation needed ]

In 2011, Sainsbury's entered into a partnership with the television clothing guru Gok Wan to design a new clothing range. [5]

In 2013, Sainsbury's relaunched the Tu brand, concentrating it entirely on clothing, with the homewares re-branded under the core "by Sainsbury's" brand (the Sainsbury's homewares range is now branded as Habitat as of 2021). The logo was also changed, from all uppercase letters to a capital "T" and a lowercase "u", to emphasise that the brand is pronounced like "two" and not "tea you". [6] [7]

In 2015, Sainsbury's set up a dedicated website, tuclothing.sainsburys.co.uk (branded as Tu.co.uk), to sell the product range nationwide to a much bigger audience. [8]

Following Sainsbury's acquisition of Argos in 2016, Sainsbury's started selling Tu clothing on the Argos website in 2018. This brought a much larger demographic of shoppers to the Tu brand, enabling access to a much broader range of household incomes. [9]

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References

  1. "Tu". Sainsbury's. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  2. "Top online stores in the Fashion segment in the UK in 2021, by e-commerce net sales". Statista. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  3. "Tu". Sainsbury's. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  4. "New campaign: Sainsbury's Tu". campaignlive.co.uk. 2004. Retrieved 2022-06-12.
  5. Owen, Ed (2011-03-02). "Gok Wan designs clothing range for Sainsbury's". campaignlive.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  6. Neilan, Catherine (2013-06-17). "Sainsbury's relaunches clothing arm Tu". drapersonline.com. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  7. Cochrane, Lauren (2013-06-24). "Sainsbury's Tu clothing range tries its hand at fast fashion". theguardian.com. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  8. Tugby, Luke (2015-08-13). "Sainsbury's launches Tu clothing website to open up range nationwide". retail-week.com. Retrieved 2022-10-11.
  9. Halliday, Sandra (2018-03-28). "Tu Clothing to be sold at Argos as Sainsbury's chases faster growth". uk.fashionnetwork.com. Retrieved 2022-10-11.